Brotherly love – El Salvador

So much has happened. 

For one… We left El Salvador… It was a pretty sad day knowing that there is a high possibility that we will never see our hosts again. I had grown so close to our hosts Cindy, Jenny and Susie. My first month on the race was at times pretty rough but these girls reminded me so much of my friends back home and they spoke into my life so much so that I got so close to them – they had become true friends and it was so hard to leave them knowing that I might never see them again… Also it was hard to leave because we had been warned over and over again that Honduras, the country to which we were headed was a dangerous country. 
Another thing that just made leaving so hard were these 2 boys at HOPA, the special needs place we worked at. I had met them the first week we were there but had not interacted with them too much other than the occasional smiles. But the last day we were there, …. Here’s an excerpt from a note I wrote to my cousin about these two boys:  

“We were at the brain paralysis center today and it was just oh so hard to leave them. I was around these two boys who just oh my God made me cry. They had such love but were disabled. I was hoping that there just was some way I could take them home with me. It was so hard — I couldn’t leave them… when I told them that I loved them, they would just light up and just look at you with such love and smiles… The little one just kept trying to hug me and kept playing with my hair and he also was so mesmerized with my necklace … So at the end, when we were leaving I had to go back and see the boys one final time and I was just pushed in my heart to leave the necklace with the younger boy… It was so hard to do– I had to take Susie, one of the host girls, with me to these boys’ room because as I was walking to the room to give him the necklace, and as I was taking it off, I just began crying so much — it was so hard to give it away— but I don’t know what came over me,  I just wanted that little boy to have it … (that necklace) was the one thing I brought from home that I wore all the time to remind me of them (Andy&Caleb) — I never, till today, took it off — I’ve been crying every time I think about it… But it’s good – I really love those 2 boys at the brain paralysis center and they really reminded me of Andy and Caleb. At one time today, I was just sitting in the middle of both their wheelchairs, talking and playing with both of them … and so I asked the older boy “Is this boy here (the younger boy) your friend?”. The thing is for these two boys, it’s hard and it takes a really long time for them to coordinate movement and speech so he took a really long time to answer but as he answered I just began to cry. He answered “… No…. El… es… mi… her… mano.” . He… is… my…  brother… Yeah, they were brothers. The younger one was always reached out for the older one and always wanted to sit near the older one.  They’re both in wheel chairs and don’t have enough coordination to move themselves anywhere so all they can do is, literally, reach out to each other. It was so hard to watch and what makes it so hard is that they are just always smiling when you talk to them… Also, if they are not placed next to each other, they will do whatever they can to get close. Like today, one of the nurses moved the older one back a few feet  and once the younger one noticed, he slowly reached down and unlocked one wheel of the wheelchair… Then slowly the other… And  then just tried with all his might to push on the wheelchair for it to move and then he saw me and just slowly pointed back reaching for his brother. They love each other so much.”